I am back down to 175, but stuck there. I know why. Poor planning, poor tracking, soda, not sleeping well, stress.

It could be worse. I could be gaining.

Both my kids have recently had birthdays. My son is end of April. My daughter is end of May. I can’t believe they are already 12 and 8. Next year, my son will be a teenager! Can it really have been almost 13 years since I held my tiny, 5.7-pound baby in my palm? He could sit in my hand, he was that little.

Now he’s almost as tall as me. I give it one more year.

I got my boy this animation tablet I thought was so cool, but we still haven’t figured out how it works. I’ve got to get upstairs and Google it out.

I got my little girl everything Bluey: electric toothbrush, toothpaste, BT headphones, a gaming money card, and a pop tent. So far, surprisingly, of all of the presents I got her, she has shown the least interest in the pop tent. She might be aging out of pop tents. I don’t know. She still likes blanket forts, though.

We had a party for my daughter yesterday. It went well, three little girls came over and played, and they really had a good time, didn’t fight much, if at all. The twins got into it a couple of times over the Papasan chair, but they were easily redirected. Identical twins, both with a long braid in their hair, so cute. And another little girl who liked to play Switch games and paint her nails. Very cute.

Derek made a cake. It was very good.

For his birthday, my son also had a close friend over for cake and I think he stayed over? That might’ve been a few days later. We made scrambled eggs for breakfast, after a bit of a frying pan debacle.

I don’t know how this post became about the kids’ birthdays. I guess I just felt like writing about the kids this morning.

Great kids. The best. Couldn’t and wouldn’t ask for better.

My daughter was crying about having to clean her room for her company, and my son came down and made it into a game to try to get her to help. He is very kind.

He’d make a good teacher, not to say that I’m encouraging that specific field for him. It’s not well-paying, kids can be fresh. Admin can be completely unsupportive, and even make things worse for you, depending on the personalities.

On the other hand, find the right school climate, with good, fair bosses, and teaching can be the best job ever. No one goes into education for the money, anyway.

And kids can be wonderful. I was teary Friday morning because I had a student who also was slightly emotional, didn’t want me to leave, and the boy I used to send to the office everyday, the one who preferred the office to my classroom in the beginning, came up and gave me a big hug.

I got hugs from my toughest girls, too, the ones I never imagined in a million years would warm up to me. I don’t know what I did other than be there. And now I’m sad because I won’t be.

If I had to give any advice to my administrators, I’d tell them to talk to all of those same kids, now. All of the ones who whined about me the most, initially. They are the most changed of everyone. I wasn’t consciously trying, but somehow, I managed to win them over.

They said I’m a teacher they feel like they can talk to. It made me cry, but it made my day.

Had I known how they actually felt about me, I might have chosen differently, at least for the rest of this year.

I truly didn’t believe I had made any sort of impact. Even the girl who rolled her eyes at me all the time helped plan the giant card the 7th grade gave me. And she came for lunch Friday. I thought she hated me.

Is it all just because now I’m leaving? They realize what they had? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, I know now I was loved.

I got a nastygram from admin about leaving before the end of the year. I was told I had put them in a “really shitty spot.” My character and my job performance were attacked.

How about the spot you put me in? An untenable situation I was expected to single-handedly fix. Why don’t I just go ahead and correct global warming, while I’m at it?

And when I didn’t/ couldn’t fix it, I was punished and made your scapegoat.

All you’ve done is to convince me that in fact I have made the right choice, getting out from under you as quickly as possible. You are soul-crushers. Morale killers. Bullies.

I never leave a place because of the kids. You can always count on kids to be kids: unpredictable, irreverent. Adults, on the other hand, have the responsibility of treating everyone, even their non-preferred staff, with respect and dignity. And some of them don’t.

And to that, I say, “Adios.” On to bigger and better things.